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The Mobile Web – Are You On Board?

There is a big metaphorical ship ready to take businesses to the next level of marketing utilizing mobile phones. As of right now, when someone wants to know what a company is all about, they Google the company and take a peek at their website. Which is great if all of those searches were coming from desktops. A large percentage, though, is coming from mobile devices, mainly smart phones.

Most people know what it is like to roll up a sleeping bag after a weekend of camping in the outdoors. You really have to squeeze and stuff the sleeping bag into its bag in order to get it all to fit. Websites work the same way. Looking at websites on a desktop allows at least 4 times the amount of viewing space when compared to mobile browsers. So when a user tries to view your website on a smaller device, all of that information gets crammed on to a small screen forcing the user to zoom and slide all around your web page in order to get a little bit of information. Sounds frustrating doesn’t it?

It is true that the website is still functional even though it is crammed onto a small screen, but is it really usable? What I mean by that is will people want to use it? Very rarely will someone be sitting at a computer and chose to use their mobile browser to search for something over using their computer, so it is when people are not at a computer that matters.

Just as an example, lets say that company A, which sells furniture, has a fully functional desktop site, but no mobile site to back it up. George is at company B, which also sells furniture, and wants to try and do a quick price comparison on the kitchen table he is looking at. The first result on his Google search was company A. Three minutes later the web page finally loads and now in order to find the product George is forced to zoom and slide around the page to find the appropriate links, some of which are too small for his finger to touch accurately. George gets bored and frustrated and even though it turns out that company A sold the same table for 100$ less, he gave up looking and purchased thetable from company B.

So that functional website, is it really functional? The website is about 4 times larger, therefore it will take longer for it to show up on mobile devices. In order to fit the website on the screen the device zooms out so everything is really small. Even if the user knows exactly where to go, they will still need to zoom in and slide around to make sure they hit the links they need to hit to get there.

Want another example? Take a look at the two images on the right. The one on top is an image of a non-mobile optimized web-page on a mobile device. It’s not very easy to see what is going on or where to go without zooming and sliding. Now look at the image below it. It is very clean and simple, easy to navigate eliminating all confusion.

That all being said, what are the advantages of having a mobile Smaller file-size means faster page loading which means everyone is happy.optimized website?look at the two images on the right. The one on top is a screen shot from a non-mobile-optimized web page on an iPhone 4S. Without zooming and scrolling its not exactly easy to see what is going on or where to go to find the information you are looking for right? Now look at the image right below it.

People, for the most part, including myself, have become very impatient and spoiled when it comes to technology. If it’s not fast and it is not easy to use, they want nothing to do with it. Is it worth not having a mobile-optimized website if that means potentially losing business from smart phone users? The answer should be no. Mobile websites are much smaller and relatively inexpensive, and will only help bring the company more business.

So what are you waiting for? That metaphorical ship is leaving and quickly speeding up. Are you on board? Or are you being left behind?